Capital letters are used:

1. •to start a sentence
   

2. •to begin speech e.g. Kim said, “Are we there yet?”
   

3. •for the first letter of proper nouns e.g. James lives in Baldwin Drive, Kaleen.
   

4. •to indicate the word “I’
   

5. •for titles of books, movies, songs, magazines etc. e.g. Tomorrow When the War Began

Full stops are used:

1. •at the end of a sentence
   

2. •when numbers are used to show the time e.g. The lesson starts at 9.00am.
   

3. •to end abbreviations (shortened versions of words that don’t end with the same letter as the original word) e.g. ed. (editor)
   

4. * Abbreviations like Mr and St (Street) don’t need full stops because they end with the same letter as the original word.

1. Commas are used to:
   

2. •separate items in a list instead of using “and” e.g. I ate bread, lettuce, tomato, cheese and carrot.
   

3. •separate figures e.g. The winner received $5,000,000.
   

4. •separate names from the rest of the sentence e.g. Jake, I’d like you to meet my sister, Emily.
   

5. •tag direct speech e.g. Sarah said, “This is my house.”
   

6. •avoid confusion e.g. Have you eaten, Jessica?
   

7. •are used before some conjunctions e.g. I would like to go for a walk, but it is raining.
   

8. •separate words that give additional information e.g. Sir Donald Bradman, the famous cricketer, was Australian.

1. Apostrophes are used to:
   

2. •show that letters have been left out e.g. don’t (do not); 6 o’clock (6 of the clock); must’ve (must have); G’day (good day); it’s (it is)
   

3. •indicate possession or ownership e.g. Lisa’s pen

1. Question marks are used at the end of a sentence that asks a question e.g. What time is it?

1. Exclamation marks indicate intense emotion e.g. Ouch! Shh! Help!

1. Colons introduce lists, series or quotations e.g. Luke plays the following sports: tennis, cricket, basketball and volleyball.